Youth are the most potent segment of the population of a country.

The youth of today are the hopes of tomorrow. They are the back bone of the country. The socioeconomic development and prosperity of rural areas depends to a considerable extent, on the type of youth living in rural areas, because the rural youth have abilities to orient themselves to go along the main stream of the development process. They reflect the national potentiality and represent the life blood of a nation. Development of youth determines the development of community and country as a whole. So, the future of the country lies in their hands, what they will become, what role they will play in a democratic society and what they will do, will be dependent to a greater extent on the period between their childhood to adulthood. Youth have been playing quite a significant role in almost every country of the world as they possess zeal and vigour. So, it is necessary to create opportunities for the national development. As psychologists said, Youth possess dynamic energies, creative activities and adventurous spirit they undergo psychological and physiological changes as they grow. So, the development of youth determines the development of the country. The youth can make their constructive contribution to national development and through which society can benefit from the idealism and the sense of dedication of youth at the same time, they also get benefitted from their active participation in development activities, since such participation increases their self esteem, gives them a sense of identity and of being needed by the society, the youths must be exposed to the social realities and the pressing problems, that the country is confronted with, for being and becoming active partners in national progress and development. India both before and after independence witnessed emergence of youth as a potential force, to reckon with involvement of youth in national developmental activities is felt significantly relevant because of their boundless energy and innate idealism, which could give a positive direction in improving the quality of life. The government of India has been organizing planned and systematic programmes for the development of Indian youth for their participation in national development. The 2001 census indicated that the youth population of India was 35,59,28,000. Among them, male and female were 18,45,78,000 and 17, 65,00,000, respectively. The place of rural youth class is more important for the future of the country. The development and harnessing of the talents and energies of youth towards constructive work is of greater importance than any other efforts. Rural youth are the

precious human assets who can play an important role in the development activities, agriculture and other allied activities. The rural youth male and female, because of their family and community background in farming are active partners in various agriculture and allied activities. Since, youth are recognized as effective change agents, they can help in the process of dissemination and adoption of modern techniques of agriculture. If the talents and abilities of rural youth are properly nurtured and systematically guided, agriculture which is the backbone of national economy can attain sustained growth and bring prosperity to the country. Agriculture generally, involves Five stages viz., production, processing, storage, marketing and consumption. In most of these stages, rural youth can actively be involved. They are participating in most of the agricultural operations like ploughing, harrowing, sowing, transplanting, weeding, harvesting, post harvesting activities and so on. Rural youth participate in marketing where the trade or enterprise is highly/largely commercialized. Rural youth play a key role in performing various tasks related to dairy and goatery enterprise like maintenance of cattle/goat shed feeding of animal/goats, collection of fodder for animals etc. The wide spread illiteracy in rural areas, unemployment among the educated youth. Lack of proper guidance, brain drain of educated rural youth to urban areas are some of the major problems faced by rural youth. It is disturbing to note that youth are loosing interest and confidence in agriculture and allied activities, hence, they are not willingly involved in agricultural operations. In spite of excellent and tremendous development in the field of agriculture science and technology only a few have been adopted. Youth are more receptive to new innovations and or techniques in any field of development than the elder ones. The youth if provided training in modern agricultural technologies, they not only come forward to accept changes but also they can influence and educate their family members and other farming community about modern technologies. The basic input for achieving higher yields are assimilation of technological knowledge for which the first step is getting the knowledge. Knowledge is one of the important components of behaviour and the adoption of any innovation depends upon the knowledge, attitude and investment capacity of an individual. It has been globally accepted that the attitude of an individual plays a pivotal role in influencing

his/her behaviour. Hence, the attitude of rural youth in India towards modern agriculture will most certainly have bearing on the future of agricultural development in this country. As agricultural activities are seasonal in nature, the rural youth will be engaged themselves in these activities during seasonal period or during off/lean periods. So, rural youth will have to be given proper training and orientations about selfemployment programmes to take up self-employment. Thereby, adding additional income to their family and improving their standard of living. In this context it is worthwhile to know the extent of participation of rural youth in the farm activities, their knowledge level towards improved agriculture, which inturn would help the planner and administrators to develop/modify training, recreational programmes and developmental strategies for rural youth.